DOLORES CLAIBORNE (FILM)

'''Dolores Claiborne''' (1995) is a film based on the eponymous novel by Stephen King, starring Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It was directed by Taylor Hackford.

Contents

Plot (Book)

Memorable Quotes from the film

Trivia

Cast

See also

External links

Plot (Book)

As the story of the novel begins, Dolores Claiborne is in a police interrogation and wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill her wealthy employer, an elderly woman named Vera Donovan whom she has looked after for years. She does, however, confess to the indirect murder of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before. Her "confession" develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer.
The novel was adapted for the screenplay of a 1995 film of the same name, filmed in Nova Scotia and starring Kathy Bates. The film differs from the novel in two important aspects. First, the events leading up to Joe's murder take place over the course of several months in 1975. In the novel, however, Dolores first rebels against Joe in 1961 or so, although she does not kill him until July 1963.
More importantly, the film focuses less on the investigation into Vera Donovan's death and more on Dolores' relationship with her daughter, Selena. (Due to the film's extensive use of flashbacks, Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as the adult Selena while Ellen Muth portrays Selena as she was at age fourteen.) As many difficult truths are revealed about their family's domestic strife, (this is cleverly portrayed with the present "reality" filmed in cool blue tones, blending seamlessly into flashbacks filmed in vivid colour) the uneasy relationship between mother and daughter becomes increasingly combative throughout the film. Selena has long suspected her mother of murdering her father, and she demands to know the truth. Dolores eventually persuades Selena that she had no choice but to do the things she did (she lured her drunk-and-dangerous-at-the-time husband into an invisible well-hole in the garden while he was chasing after her), and that they were both victims of Joe St. George: the ever-more abusive husband that he was towards his wife Dolores, and the molester of their daughter Selena.
The film provided the inspiration for the song entitled "There Is No Arizona" which was performed by Jamie O'Neal. Selena, confessing that she doesn't really have an important assignment in Arizona, tells her mother "There is no Arizona".

Memorable Quotes from the film

Dolores Claiborne: "That is the last time you ever hit me! You do it again, one of us is going to the bone yard."
Vera Donovan: "Sometimes, Dolores, an accident can be an unhappy woman's best friend."
Dolores Claiborne: "Now, you listen to me, Mr. Grand High Poobah of Upper Buttcrack, I'm just about half-past give a shit with your fun and games."
Vera Donovan: "Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto." [1]
Vera Donovan: "Look on the bright side, dear: you may not have gotten the job, but think how much fun you'll have telling all your friends what a bitch Vera Donovan is."
Dolores Claiborne: "I'm not making an enemy; I'm keepin' one."

Trivia

While filming the scene on the ferry between Dolores and Selena, actress Jennifer Jason Leigh became seasick. A student from the local high school was pulled out of class to act as a stand-in.
A bad fire on the set in Nova Scotia, Canada, caused one million dollars damage.
To prepare for her role, actress Ellen Muth wrote in a journal as her character in the movie for weeks before shooting the film.
The ferry at the end of the movie is called the "Joshua Slocum", named for the first person to circumnavigate the globe alone.
Castle Rock bought the rights to Stephen King's novel for $1.5 million

Cast

Actor	Role
Kathy Bates	Dolores Claiborne
Jennifer Jason Leigh	Selena St. George
Judy Parfitt	Vera Donovan
Christopher Plummer	Detective John Mackey
David Strathairn	Joe St. George
Eric Bogosian	Peter
John C. Reilly	Constable Frank Stamshaw
Ellen Muth	Young Selena

See also

★ Dolores Claiborne (Stephen King novel)

★ Solar eclipses in fiction

External links

★